Disclaimer: JK Rowling and a few other people own everything, I don't.

Come Take My Hand

Chapter 1

Up In Flames

The full moon was hanging high in the night sky over Surrey.

It was an hour when one would expect that most people would be asleep in their beds; the morning sunlight wouldn't come drifting through their curtains for a good few hours more.

However, in a house in Little Whinging, one person lay awake.

This person was in fact a child of nine years, with tousled black hair and of a scrawny build. The boy hadn't been awake for more than a few minutes, and he was quite unsure as to why he had awoken. He had opened his eyes to find a spider crawling along his cheek, but such things were a common occurance, generally not disturbing him.

The child turned over to lie on his side, stretching his legs out as much as he could within the small cupboard. The house was entombed in silence, not unusual given the time of night.

Yet the child had an eerie feeling that something wasn't quite as normal as it seemed.

As he lay staring up at the ceiling, the events of the previous day drifted back to him.

His cousin, Dudley, had attempted to hit the smaller boy in the face with Aunt Petunia's new vase...the expensive vase had somehow dissolved into a powdery substance on impact...

Aunt Petunia had been shocked...the boy supposed that she had expected the vase to be of better quality. Glass didn't often dissolve to powder...

He did think that it was good that it had done so though; smashed glass in his face would have, no doubt, been rather painful.

But then, then there had been yelling.

Yelling...Uncle Vernon had been angry at him.

Really angry.

The vase had been very expensive, the young boy reasoned. Aunt Petunia had said so, many times. If it was his fault that it had broken, it was fair enough that he be thrown into the cupboard... it was hardly a punishment anyway, he was used to being there, he enjoyed the solitude.

Being alone was better than being in the company of people who didn't like him. And no one liked him, he could remember Uncle Vernon telling him so...or maybe it had been Aunt Petunia...

He reached a small hand up to the cupboard door and pushed against it tenderly.

It was locked. Yes... he remembered his Uncle locking the door, hours before...

He pulled his hand away from the door and closed his eyes.

As he lay there, a smell drifted into the air. The child was used to this smell, he'd been cooking meals for the Dursleys for quite some time...when he had been using the oven, this smell was generally followed by Aunt Petunia yelling at him...burnt food was wasted food...

He rolled over, somewhere in between being asleep and awake.

Burnt...burning...fire...fire...

The boy's eyes flew open as his half-asleep mind fully registered what was happening.

Both of his hands went to the door this time, pulling at it, pushing it, the lock held strong. The small child was no match against the metal bolt.

The smell of smoke grew stronger.

Still he thrashed his hands against it, kicked at it with his foot...the slight force still had no effect.

"UNCLE VERNON, AUNT PETUNIA, PLEASE...SOMEONE, ANYONE..."

His shouts were mingled with someone else's now... Dudley's maybe, someone was screaming...

Smoke was slowly drifting in under the cupboard door now, blanketing the space around him. He banged at the door, desperate to get out of what would soon become an incinerator.

No-one came.

The child couldn't hear any voices now...the only thing he could hear was vague coughing...his own. As best he could, he threw all his weight against the door, which, by some miracle finally gave in...

The door hinges had disappeared, though he didn't take this information in as he stumbled out into the living room through thick, hazy greyness...

He could make out flickering flames in the direction of the doorway to the rest of the house, he ran from it, out through the front door, it a state of shock and confusion.

The predominant image in the scene he was presented with outside was a fire truck.

Red.

Red like the fire.

Spinning around, he looked up at the place he had called home for the whole extent of his life.

Now it was burning. Flames leapt out from the windows, the walls were being overcome by it as well. And the air, for as far as he could see, was grey.

Some people were running towards it, some people were running away from it. They were all moving at a speed that was overwhelming. And then there was the noise...

He closed his eyes and brought his hands up to cover his ears. The sirens were resounding in his mind. Moving forwards on unsteady feet, he tripped over the leg of his pyjama pants...they were still a bit too long for him...

The child's knees collapsed from under him as he fell to the ground on the damp grass, bewilderment and exhaustion proving a bad combination.

He could hear a familiar voice. In the distance, Uncle Vernon was yelling...he did a great deal of that, the boy thought blurrily.

Arms scooped him up and further away from the house, before passing him over to someone else.

Opening his eyes slightly, he looked up at the women carrying him.

"Are y-you a n-nurse?" He whispered softly, realising for the first time that he was shaking uncontrollably.

"Yes, dear." was the reply he received as he was placed in the ambulance.

He could hear voices all around him now, unfamiliar and strange...he couldn't hear Uncle Vernon any longer. He found himself wishing he could...at least it was something he was used to...

Fatigue finally overcame him and he spiralled into a deep, dreamless sleep.